With a couple exceptions, I never ran into any officers on the base. Aside from someone messing with my suits, I wasn’t aware of Jason or any of his accomplices actively coming after me. No one got in my face. No one bothered me. No one physically attacked me. It’d been so unbelievably easy to focus on surviving my stupid job instead of thinking one step ahead of Jason’s plans. I’d completely ignored the bigger picture.

I covered my face with my hands.

“How could you let this happen?” Lorne’s words were pure ice, but for the first time, I agreed with him. This had all been one terrible mistake after another.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get the sound of you screaming out of my head.” Declan ignored Lorne entirely.

I dropped my hands from my face. Declan’s face was pale and his eyes were wide. That was why his gaze kept darting to me. “You didn’t.” If he watched those videos, I didn’t know what I was going to do.

“I had to.” Pity. It was pity on his face now.

I didn’t want his pity. I didn’t need that.

“You screamed for hours and hours in that room. And the burns. The first vid file I found from the med bay—the day your shoes melted to your feet—that had been horrible, but it got so much worse. Your skin. The way your lungs rattled the third time you were in there. I had to watch it on fast forward. I couldn’t stand it. You were dead for a minute and thirty-seven seconds and—”

There was a flash of brightness in the room and I glanced at Lorne.

His eyes were closed as he leaned back against the desk. His hands gripped the edge so tightly his knuckles turned white.

I stepped toward him, but he shook his head without looking up.

“I just need a second.” Lorne’s voice was strained. “Please. Just a second.”

Declan said something softly, but Lorne cut him off with a single, sharp word.

The sleeves of Lorne’s shirt were pushed up above his elbows. His muscles were corded as he held onto the table and I wanted to touch his bright skin. The tattoos ran up his arms, and I knew they probably covered most of his upper body, but I couldn’t see them all.

I took a small step toward him. “What do they mean?” I asked, hoping to distract him.

Lorne turned to me slowly. “What does what mean?” he asked a little too softly.

“The glow? The tattoos? What do they mean? Why do you glow?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and hung his head low. “My heart breaks that you have to ask.”